


Roses in December

by dani_the_girl



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-01-20
Updated: 2009-01-20
Packaged: 2017-10-08 14:21:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/76512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dani_the_girl/pseuds/dani_the_girl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some memories are easier to recover than others, Daniel finds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Roses in December

**Author's Note:**

> Tremendous thanks to [](http://www.livejournal.com/users/princessofg/profile)[**princessofg**](http://www.livejournal.com/users/princessofg/) for her help with this! It is a much better story than the draft I first posted her.

Daniel sits in the car, staring blankly out at the view in front of him. An empty street, a quiet house, bare branches on trees. As soon as he steps out, he knows he will be able to see his breath, it's so cold. The half light of dusk should soften the stark edges but somehow sharpen them. It looks sterile, he thinks distractedly and momentarily longs to be back in the ruins of Vis Uban where the sharp corners have long ago succumbed to moss.

It's not Jack's house, this isn't even Jack's street. Between his fragmentary memories and reading reports of their old missions, he's already figured out that Jack's always alert senses would notice his car sitting there doing apparently nothing and come check it out long before he's ready. He senses the thought sparking some memory or other, but almost as soon as he mentally turns towards it, it's gone, flitting away into his subconscious.

In some ways, he muses, it would be better if the damn things really were gone. If all he had to go on was the mission reports and people's stories and he couldn't feel the knowledge lurking on the edge of his mind. If he didn't have to feel guilty about not remembering, as if he could be doing better if only he made a bit more effort. He sighs and starts the engine of the borrowed Ford to drive the final few streets to Jack's place. Mirror, signal, manoeuvre. Now he's back behind the wheel, it all comes back so easily. He's going to do this.

The evidence he's managed to assemble is fragmentary at best, unfortunately. Textual similarities in his diaries suggest that Sarah and Jack have something in common, something he never comes out and says in so many words. If only he had been less cryptic, he thinks wryly, quite a bit of this could have been easier. On the other hand, perhaps it's better that he wasn't. It could just be working together, of course. Or even being under fire - his notes from the Cairo dig show she knew how to defend herself. But then, those things don't apply to just those two people. There's something in the spaces, something that's not said about those two people because it didn't need to be written down. Because he thought he would never need to be reminded of it.

And then there's the pleasurable jolt in his stomach when he saw them again, SG1, which he'd initially assumed must relate to Sam. And the fact that he apparently finds teasing Jack irresistible. He's spent the evening reading Jack's mission reports, trying to figure out more, but with no comparative reference material, he'd made little progress. Still, there were hints, tiny tones shifts which his instinct tells him are elisions, half truths at best. He wonder if anyone else saw them.

He parks the car and marches up the driveway, beers in hand. Rings the doorbell before he can think better of this. Jack answers, looking non-plussed. "Uh, hi, Daniel," he says, "what can I do for you."

Daniel indicates the beers. "I was hoping I could just come over and talk to you for a while," he says.

Jack gives him a long look, but lets him in, puts the beers in the fridge. "I see you managed to remember my favourite brand," he jokes.

Actually, that _had_ been mentioned in passing in one of his diary entries. "Yeah, I wish it all came back that easily." Daniel follows him into the kitchen. The remains of the takeout Jack must have eaten earlier in the evening have been dumped on the counter. Daniel absently picks up one of the chopsticks and starts twirling it through his fingers as he watches Jack move around the room.

"You not doing so good? You seemed pretty confident when we were saying goodbye to Jonas." Jack rummages in a drawer, presumably hunting for a bottle opener.

"Yeah, well I don't want to find myself stuck with the base therapist for months on end," Daniel replies, frowning. "I do remember that much. And reading through the reports is helping; that and running around on a ha'tak seem to have brought back a lot." The bottle opener is on the counter he notices and passes it over. Jack quirks a smile, half thanks, half 'I knew that was there!' and pops open two bottles.

"But you decided to take a break from all that to come over and drink beer with me," he says, more a statement than a question, but the question still there, lurking underneath. What are you doing here?

He brings over the open bottles, passes one to Daniel and ushers him into the living room, where he sits down on a chair, gesturing for Daniel to do the same. Daniel takes a swig from his bottle and makes a face. He wonders if this is just an acquired taste he's going to have to reacquire or if he never liked this stuff and Jack's just messing with him.

"Well, I didn't really fancy sitting around on my own and brooding, but I can't really remember what I used to do when I wasn't working and I've nowhere to go to do it at the moment anyway. I was hoping you could help me with that, actually." Unsubtle, but he has a feeling that Jack will pretend not to notice anything short of a direct approach.

"With what, apartment hunting?"

"No, with what I used to do when I was off base. I have this feeling that you're the person to ask."

Jack stares at him for a moment, then takes a long pull of his beer. "You don't remember, do you?" he asks softly.

Daniel finds that he doesn't want to look at Jack's face, to see his hurt expression. He toys with his own beer bottle without drinking. "No," he admits finally. "Not any details. But I know I should. The things I remember right now are the bad things: the fighting, the snakes, the pressure. But then that's what I've been doing since I got back. I thought you could help me with some of the up-sides."

"So you're hoping that sitting here with a couple of bottles and perhaps a pizza will revive your memories of team bonding sessions." Jack's voice is even, controlled, only the faintest harmonics suggest tension.

"No," Daniel snaps, his own tension showing through. "I can ask any of the others for that - team nights have already been automatically added back into my schedule. It's you and me I can't pinpoint." He pauses, gathering his thoughts, then resumes, more softly, less a demand, more a plea. "I need you to help me out, Jack. There's... something. Something else, something more. I remember that, I can feel that, but I don't remember what happened."

_What's in the spaces that I never recorded?_, he thinks. The question hovers for a moment, the room silent.

"That's all there is," Jack says, a harsh note in his voice. "'Something'. We both felt it, we never did anything. You were married, I'm an Air Force officer. Nothing to remember."

Daniel's eyes snap up, searching his face. Jack isn't looking at him, but past him at the glass of the window, their reflections, and there's something in his voice again, that slight vibration. Perhaps it's too similar to the way Daniel himself prevaricates. "No," he responds, almost before thinking. "You're lying." There's the faintest of twitches in the cords of Jack's neck. He waits, but Jack doesn't seem to want to add anything, so he continues. He can hear the edge creeping into his voice, but it's as level as he can make it and that will have to do. "So either it finished before I died or you want to finish it now. Why?"

Jack still won't look at him. "It made things complicated."

"Makes," Daniel corrects quietly. "And it wasn't already over, was it." Jack stays silent, still staring out of the window, refusing to meet Daniel's eyes. "But you don't want it to start again." He pauses, searching with his mind, questing fingers grasping at tendrils that are just slightly closer to within reach now. "Was it that hard, when I went?"

Jack stands up, walks across to the kitchen to get another drink. "No, Daniel, I was entirely unaffected by your decision to turn into a ball of glowing light."

Daniel turns this over in his mind, scanning it for possible interpretations. "You think I finished it," he says slowly, following Jack into the kitchen. "I chose to Ascend and leave you behind."

Jack is staring into the open fridge, body rigid, unwilling to turn around. "Didn't you?" he asks.

"I don't know," Daniel says, frustrated, running his hands through his hair. "I don't remember. I was hoping you could help me. Tell me what happened."

Jack turns around, beer in hand, and looks him up and down slowly, methodically. Daniel tries to suppress the urge to blush; that gaze isn't clinical by a long way. "Now who's lying," Jack asks conversationally. "You never wanted me to _tell_ you anything." His voice is tinged with sarcasm, but there's also a faint underlying suggestiveness there which tells Daniel he's on the right track. "Are you sure you want to know? It wasn't all roses."

"I have to know," Daniel insists softly. "We're going to have to work together whatever you do and if you're worried this is going to cloud your judgement then it's too late - it'll be clouded anyway."

Jack stares at him, and then abruptly puts his bottle back down on the counter and strides over to where Daniel is leaning against the wall next to the doorway. Daniel stares back, challenging, determined. Almost involuntarily, Jack reaches up a hand, ghosts a thumb over Daniel's cheekbone. "That's just what you said last time," he whispers and leans in, pulling Daniel forward with long warm fingers into a kiss.

For a moment, it feels totally alien, and Daniel briefly thinks that this is not going to work, that those tendrils will just continue to dance just beyond his grasp, taunting him with his past. And then he inhales, a deep lung-full of Jack's scent, Jack's presence, and suddenly, this is familiar. He feels himself shaking slightly as the memories surge back now that the channel has been cut for them. He reaches out to grip Jack's biceps, wanting to anchor himself more firmly in the present. Jack leans back and gives him a quizzical look. "You OK?" he asks and Daniel knows that if he wants this back again, he can't hesitate. "Yes," he replies, taking a deep breath, pulling Jack back into him, back into their kiss.


End file.
